REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 45 



various persons informed on the subject, including superintendents of 



parks and grounds, for lists of the trees the existence of which in the 

 District is known to them. The information thus obtained will be col- 

 lated and presented in the form of a map, which will undoubtedly be 

 of much interest. 



Among - the various courtesies extended, directly or indirectly, to the 

 Institution, was an invitation to the Secretary to permit his name to 

 be used as one of a committee on a bill providing for the protection of 

 American forests. He was also asked to serve as a member of the jury 

 in the International Horticultural Exposition, to be held at St. Peters- 

 burg on the 17th of Hay, under the auspices of the Imperial Horticult- 

 ural Society of Russia. 



NECROL()(i\. 



The usual melancholy task of recording some deaths dining the year, 

 of employes and collaborators of the Institution, again falls upon me. 

 1 shall follow the order in time of the respective dates of decease. 



Edward H. Knight, born in London, June 1, 1824, came to this 

 country and settled in Cincinnati in 1815, at the age of twenty-one. He 

 died at Bellefontaine, Ohio, January 22, 1883, at the age of fifty-nine 

 years. In 1801 he was employed in the CTnited States Patent Office as 

 general editor of its publications. During his connection with this great 

 institution, availing himself of his rare advantages, he compiled his 

 '•American Mechanical Dictionary," which was completed and pub- 

 lished in 1873 in three large octavo volumes. In 1870 he was selected 

 as the commissioner in charge of the Patent Office exhibit at the Cen- 

 tennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. As one result of his observations 

 at that great international display he wrote "A Study of the Savage 

 Weapons at the Centennial Exhibition," which was published in the 

 Smithsonian Report for 1870, occupying 86 pages, and illustrated with 

 117 sketches of various weapons sketched by himself. In 1S78 he was 

 appointed a commissioner to the International Exposition held in Paris 

 in that year; and in the following year supervised the publication of 

 the olficial report of the United States commissioners to the Exposition, 

 in five octavo volumes. He had undertaken for the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution the preparation of an elaborate work on the "Development of 

 the Mechanic Arts," a subject he was well qualified by his studies and 

 tastes to discuss in a comprehensive manner, but a project he did not 

 live to accomplish. 



Paul Schumacher was born in Hungary April 10, 1813. In 1805, 

 at the age of twenty-two, he came to the United States. He remained 

 several years in New York, where he acquired the English language by 

 his own efforts. He left New York on account of ill health, and weut 

 to San Erancisco, where he remained until he was employed by the 

 United States Coast Survey. In this service he made his firs! collec- 



